, sometimes
playfully, sometimes sternly. Felicia was nineteen, with a tropical
beauty somewhat like her cousin, Rachel Winslow, with warm, generous
impulses just waking into Christian feeling, capable of all sorts of
expression, a puzzle to her father, a source of irritation to her
mother and with a great unsurveyed territory of thought and action
in herself, of which she was more than dimly conscious. There was
that in Felicia that would easily endure any condition in life if
only the liberty to act fully on her conscientious convictions were
granted her.

"Here's a letter for you, Felicia," said Mr. Sterling, handing it to
her.

Felicia sat down and instantly opened the letter, saying as she did
so: "It's from Rachel."

"Well, what's the latest news from Raymond?" asked Mr. Sterling,
taking his cigar out of his mouth and looking at Felicia with
half-shut eyes, as if he were studying her.

"Rachel says Dr. Bruce has been staying in Raymond for two Sundays
and has seemed very much interested in Mr. Maxwell's pledge in the
First Church."

"What does Rachel say about herself?" asked Rose, who was lying on a
couch almost buried under elegant cushions.

"She is still singing at the Rectangle. Since the tent meetings
closed she sings in an old hall until the new buildings which her
friend, Virginia Page, is putting up are completed.

"I must write Rachel to come to Chicago and visit us. She ought not
to throw away her voice in that railroad town upon all those people
who don't appreciate her."

Mr. Sterling lighted a new cigar and Rose exclaimed: "Rachel is so
queer. She might set Chicago wild with her voice if she sang in the
Auditorium. And there she goes on throwing it away on people who
don't know what they are hearing."

"Rachel won't come here unless she can do it and keep her pledge at
the same time," said Felicia, after a pause.

"What pledge?" Mr. Sterling asked the question and then added
hastily: "Oh, I know, yes! A very peculiar thing that. Alexander
Powers used to be a friend of mine. We learned telegraphy in the
same office. Made a great sensation when he resigned and handed over
that evidence to the Interstate Commerce Commission. And he's back
at his telegraph again. There have been queer doings in Raymond
during the past year. I wonder what Dr. Bruce thinks of it on the
whole. I must have a talk with him about it."

"He is at home and will preach tomorrow," said Felicia. "Perhaps he
will te